Opinion – Cida Bento: The Brazil we want

I was a counselor at Consea (National Council for Food and Nutrition Security, linked to the Presidency of the Republic) in 2003, a very transformative experience in my life.

In the meetings of this council, the Zero Hunger program was the theme that mobilized us, and I have remembered how intense the debates were.

Considered the largest federal government initiative of its kind in the country’s history, Fome Zero focused on food security based on a set of public policies, such as the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy, and a large campaign against hunger involving the federal, state and municipal governments and all ministries.

The actions were very diverse, ranging from economic aid with the Bolsa Família card to the construction of cisterns in the northeastern hinterland, through the creation of popular restaurants, teaching about eating habits, distribution of vitamins and food supplements and microcredit to poorer families, among others.

We understood food security from the concept of guaranteeing the right of all people to quality food, respecting the cultural characteristics of each people in the act of eating.

We discussed that families participating in the program would have to keep their children in school and that they would participate in councils that planned actions. The aim was to combine the defense of rights with emancipatory policies that would strengthen the autonomy of families.

In this regard, various structural actions were also debated and implemented, whether in terms of job and income generation, incentives for family farming, adult literacy, agrarian reform, school grants and minimum income. I am sure that this is the most urgent agenda that Brazil needs to implement: getting off the Hunger Map again.

Social programs such as Fome Zero, Luz Para Todos or Cisternas, among many others, have changed the lives of millions of people in Brazil. Others empowered the heads of families through priority registration on behalf of women, such as Bolsa Família and Minha Casa Minha Vida, very relevant in a historical period such as the one we are experiencing.

None of them were perfect or fully implemented. The design and implementation of many involved tensions and broad debates between government and civil society.

But courage drove the advance, and that’s how we left the Hunger Map in 2014. That year, Brazil did not solve the problems of food and nutrition security, but managed to get people out of the extreme situation that is hunger.

In the country we dream of, new initiatives will be invented, but good seeds such as those that come from these programs open the way for great leaps that accelerate the removal of families from extreme poverty.

Prouni, the quota policy in higher education, the Maria da Penha law and the integral health program for the black population need to be improved. But they represent a road already trodden in the field of public policies for equity.

Brazilian families may be able to worry about studying, looking for better job opportunities, starting their own business, if they manage to overcome the first challenge that means overcoming hunger. As João Bosco says: “Anger can be stopped, stopped… Hunger cannot be stopped”.

So in the days leading up to the election, we can still fight for hopeful votes from our family, our friends, our neighbors. It is on October 2nd that we will be able to make a difference in the direction of another Brazil, more civilized and more humanized.